Aces High

by Kay Hooper

  “No.” She met his gaze steadily, unaware of the clear honesty in the direct look. “If you mean to hurt me this way, I can’t fight you. We both know it. But I won’t let you destroy me. Not this time.”

  “Could I hurt you?” he asked roughly.

  Katrina didn’t hesitate. “Passion without love is always hurtful.”

  He was staring down at her, a muscle jerking in his lean jaw, and his eyes intense. He glanced around as if suddenly aware of where they were, then swore beneath his breath and led her swiftly from the restaurant. Alone with her in the elevator, he held her hand tightly and said in a grim voice, “You seem to bring out the worst in me.”

  She stole a glance up at his profile and felt a strange tremor within her. There was something in his face she’d never seen before, something she was almost afraid to try to define. She could almost have believed…But it wasn’t possible, there was too much bitterness and pain between them; it was only revenge he wanted.

  He didn’t take her to her suite but to his own room on the eighth floor, and when the door had closed behind them he released her hand and went to the window, standing with his back to her. “You believe I want to hurt you,” he said finally in that same bleak tone.

  Katrina could have left, but something in the stiffness of his body or the dullness of his voice held her motionless by the door. “You told me—” She broke off as he made a curiously uncontrolled gesture with one hand.

  “I know what I told you.” He turned suddenly but didn’t move from the window. “I said some of the things I’ve wanted to say to you for six endless years, and it almost killed me.”

  She swallowed hard. “I don’t understand.” Was he only toying with her now, attacking from a different direction? She gazed at his white face—and couldn’t believe the answer was yes.

  He seemed to hesitate, then said steadily, “Can we start over, Trina? Or have I made you hate me?”

  Katrina felt oddly suspended; she had nerved herself for a battle, all her will bent on surviving intact, and now she didn’t know what emotions were churning inside her. “What do you want from me?” she asked finally, huskily.

  “Another chance.”

  “Why?”

  Skye drew a deep breath. “Because I’ve never been able to forget you. Even when I wanted to. Because you still feel something for me, even if it’s only desire. And because we both have to settle with the past.”

  Her legs felt shaky, and she moved to sit in a chair near the foot of the bed. “No,” she heard herself saying.

  Skye came toward her slowly and sat down on the bed so that only a few feet separated them. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and when he did his voice was low and somewhat curt. “I don’t seem to have much pride where you’re concerned. Not enough, anyway, to accept your answer.”

  She shook her head slightly. “It’s impossible. You must see it is so.”

  “I don’t. Trina, I’m sorry for what happened in Germany, and I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted today. I thought—hell, I didn’t think at all. When I saw you again without warning, I knew I still wanted you, that I’d never stopped wanting you. And when you felt something too…But that isn’t enough, not for us. There’s something more between us, even now.”

  “Wounds.”

  He hesitated, then nodded jerkily. “I can’t deny that. But they were wounds caused by a terrible mistake, and we have to let them heal.”

  “You wanted revenge,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “You wanted to—to use me.”

  “No.” He made a movement as if he would have reached out to her, but then his hand fell back to clench against his knee. “I know that’s how it seemed to you, how it sounded, but I swear I never wanted that. It’s just…I don’t know how you feel, what you’re thinking. You’re so damned calm, and I—I’m not. But I realized I could still make you want me, and that seemed to be the only way I could reach you.”

  “What changed your mind?” she asked steadily.

  “It hurt too much,” he said, his voice rasping over the simple words. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I know I’ve made you hate me, but please, Trina, give me a chance to change that.”

  Katrina was struggling, fighting the effect of his voice, his words. She tried not to look at him and yet couldn’t tear her eyes from his pale face, seeing in it a glimpse of anguish she wouldn’t have believed possible. And that fleeting emotion defeated her in a way his earlier demands could never have.

  “I don’t hate you.”

  He reached out quickly and took both her hands in his, holding them tightly. “Then give me another chance.”

  “You could never forget Germany,” she protested, and his reply surprised her.

  “I don’t want to.”

  She looked at him mutely, and his grasp on her hands tightened.

  “Trina, what happened was my fault. Both of us had secrets, but I’m the one who didn’t trust enough to give you at least a chance to explain. I’ll regret that for the rest of my life.”

  She hesitated. “Today you still had doubts about me, and about what I really was in Germany.”

  “That was six years of bitterness talking.” He shook his head, a rueful smile on his lips. “If I’d been able to think at all, I would have known the truth from the moment I first saw you this morning. If you hadn’t been one of our agents, or a double agent then, you couldn’t be here now. Mueller had you marked a communist agent, which means the CIA would have known the day you entered this country. For you to be living here—and working for Gigi—is cast-iron proof you were never on the other side.”

  Katrina had no wish to play devil’s advocate, but she had to because his belief in the truth was so vitally important. “Unless it was all set up that way,” she offered, watching him intently. “The entire point could have been to get me here, and in Gigi’s confidence. And that could have been why I married an American.”

  He was still smiling. “No.”

  “Why not? It is conceivable.”

  “Certainly it is,” he agreed promptly. “And it’s just the sort of devious plan the KGB might have come up with. In fact, they have tried variations of it many times. But Gigi has an infallible instinct, and they’ve never yet been able to fool her for more than a day or so. Five years? And even before, when she recruited you in Germany? No, you never belonged to the other side.”

  Very conscious of the warmth and strength of his hands, she tried to draw her own away. “Still—”

  He refused to let go. “Trina. We live complicated, suspicious lives, you and I, and it’s a rare thing for either of us to trust someone deeply. I know we have to find that kind of trust in each other after what happened in Germany, and I know it won’t be easy. But I can’t walk away from you without at least trying. Not this time.”

  “Your assignment here—”

  “There won’t be much happening for the next week or so; you know that. I have to check out the park, all the rides and exhibits, just as a precaution.” He hesitated, then added tentatively, “I could use some help, if Gigi can spare you from the hotel.”

  Katrina gazed at him, and suddenly realized that his eyes were no longer shuttered or hard or reckless; they were more like the eyes she remembered, vivid and filled with life. And she wasn’t surprised to hear herself say, “I’ll ask.”

  He lifted one of her hands briefly to his lips and then rose, pulling her to her feet. “I won’t push you into anything you’re not ready for, Trina.”

  She half nodded and gently pulled her hands away. “I have to talk to Gigi about the contact I met tonight. So I—I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Skye stood staring at the closed door for a long time before he finally moved. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair, then loosened his tie with one hand as he bent and pulled an attaché case from underneath the bed. The case was locked, though no combination lock was visible. He sat on the bed and placed the case on its side, then touched a sequ
ence of pressure points that were also invisible. The case opened easily.

  He studied the contents thoughtfully for a moment, frowning just a little. In cushioned compartments, each separate from the other, reposed a small bundle of high explosive, a sophisticated timing device, and an equally sophisticated detonator.

  Skye had spent the afternoon exploring the park casually, and even though his mind had been almost completely fixed on thoughts of Katrina, the professional part of him had been taking stock unconsciously. And that same professional part of him now considered and discarded various places he remembered.

  Not the log ride, he thought, or the roller coaster; both rides allowed far too much random access by visitors to the park to allow for a specific target—and the target was very specific. The slower rides held better possibilities, but they too were annoyingly unsuited to his purpose.

  How would it be possible, he mused, to target one person among the thousands in the park at any given time when the method to be used was explosives? It would be a simple matter, of course, to blow up an entire area, but Adrian had shown so much finesse these last few years.

  Still frowning, Skye closed the case and returned it to its place beneath the bed. He had barely straightened again when a soft knock came at the door. He rose and crossed the room silently, and after a quick glance through the security peephole stepped back and opened the door.

  “We look odd through that hole,” he said.

  The gambler, minus his costume, seemed to find nothing strange in the remark. “Do we? I’ve never noticed.” He came into the room and watched Skye shut the door.

  “Distorted.” Skye looked at him musingly. “Especially you. Must be the mustache. What are you doing on my floor, Dane? If Hagen should see you—”

  “Hagen is enjoying his dinner in lonely splendor at the moment. Josh has several of his people on the staff, so we’ll be pretty well advised of the great man’s movements.”

  Skye went to the bed and made himself comfortable, leaning back against the headboard. In the same reflective tone he said, “I know the business world would suffer, but Josh really should put his talents to broader use. Between them, he and Raven could straighten out the problems in the United Nations.”

  Dane grinned a little as he sat on the foot of the bed, but then sobered. “Are you all right?”

  Skye looked at his brother’s concerned face, identical to his own except for the recent addition of a neat mustache, and smiled a bit wryly. “Yeah. But it’s been a hell of a day.”

  “I got that feeling. The ghost?”

  After a slight hesitation Skye said, “I did make a mistake in Germany. She was a double agent, Dane, working for our side.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” Dane asked quietly.

  “Everything I can.”

  “Guilty conscience?”

  “You know better than that.” Skye hesitated again, then added roughly, “Did I ever thank you for keeping me from standing in front of a bullet after Germany?”

  Dane looked grave, but his eyes were smiling. “Well, no. As I remember, you tried to knock me down the night I found you. I’m probably being vain in thinking you wouldn’t have been able to do it even if you hadn’t been pickled at the time.”

  “Very vain!” Skye retorted, but he was smiling. “It’s a bit late, but thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Dane responded politely. “I’ve always wondered, though, what you were doing in Palermo.”

  Skye was startled. “Was that where you found me?” He had certainly never believed that period of his life was at all amusing, and in fact he and Dane had never talked about it before, but Skye began to realize only then that Dane had very likely had his hands full and deserved much more than a belated thanks.

  “You don’t remember?”

  Beginning to laugh, Skye said, “All I remember is that I woke up on some godawful cargo plane surrounded by crates full of chickens, and that you swore at me until the damned thing landed in Spain. It was Spain, wasn’t it?”

  Dane half closed his eyes in a wince. “Yes. You gave me the slip half an hour after we landed, and it took me six hours to find you again. It wasn’t that hard, all things considered, because all I had to do was ask people if they’d seen me. I got some odd looks, though.” He sighed. “You were about to board a tramp steamer headed east, presumably to get back to Palermo. When I tried to grab you, you swung at me and knocked down a dock worker. He wasn’t inclined to be amused about the matter, and neither were the officials called in to stop the brawl. We both spent the night in jail, and not much of a jail at that. When I woke up you were gone, having picked the lock and sneaked out while the guard was asleep.”

  “I do remember that,” Skye offered, grinning.

  Dane eyed him. “Uh-huh. Do you also remember where I caught up with you a week later?”

  “Palermo?”

  “Nice try. Casablanca.”

  It was Skye’s turn to wince.

  Dane nodded firmly. “Casablanca. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find you listening to sad songs, but in fact you were sitting under a tree playing poker with two Bedouins and a very suspicious Turk.”

  “Did you bring me home then?” Skye asked hopefully.

  Dane refused to laugh. “You had just bet everything in your pockets—and lost. The Turk was, to put it mildly, upset to find your pockets empty. By the time I got him placated, my pockets were empty, and I had one hell of a time arranging transportation back to the States.”

  Skye cleared his throat. “I didn’t give you any more trouble, did I?”

  “None to speak of.” He reflected, then decided to speak. “Of course, it would have been a more comfortable trip if you hadn’t been hell-bent on getting away from me.”

  Skye was smiling a little. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time.”

  Dane nodded. “I know. I knew then, even though you wouldn’t talk about it. Just don’t put me through that again, will you?”

  “God, I hope not!” He laughed suddenly. “It wasn’t amusing at the time, and I’ll bet you felt like shooting me. I have to admit it sounds funny now, though. Maybe I’ll let you tell Katrina about it one day.”

  Smiling, Dane got to his feet. “When do Jenny and I meet her?”

  “Give me a little time to get to know her again. We’re both different after six years. We have a lot of catching up to do, and quite a few things to put behind us.”

  “Does she know you’re a twin?”

  Skye nodded. “Since you weren’t working with me in Germany, I told her.”

  “I’d wish you luck,” Dane said a bit dryly, “but you already have more of that than any man I know. Now that you have another chance with Katrina, maybe you’ll stop wasting your luck by stepping in front of stray bullets and angry bulls.”

  When his brother had gone, Skye remained where he was for a while, thinking. Dane’s final words stuck in his mind, and he realized ruefully that his brother hadn’t been deceived six years earlier—or in the time since. It didn’t really surprise him.

  Ties of blood, ties of love. The bond with his brother would never be broken, and the bond with Katrina had resisted all his wild, bitter, painful attempts to break it.

  Now if he could only reach her….

  Chapter 3

  Katrina was up early the next morning. It was her habit to wake before the sun, and the staff of the hotel’s smallest restaurant always had coffee and fruit ready for her when she came down from her suite. Today, as usual, she sat in her accustomed booth near the huge windows on the east side of the building, drinking her coffee and watching the sunrise. She had finished her breakfast, and the remains had been taken away.

  Two things she no longer took for granted: fresh fruit and sunrises.

  “Good morning,” Skye said. “May I?”

  A bit startled by his sudden appearance, she looked at him and nodded, murmuring a greeting while he slid into the booth across from her. Her
restless night and the events of yesterday had left her wary and uncertain, and she didn’t quite know how to react to him today.

  But Skye, his eyes bright and apparently rested despite the early hour, seemed perfectly friendly. “You used to sleep late,” he observed in a light tone.

  “Things change,” she offered lamely.

  He didn’t probe. “True. Do I have a companion for the day, or has Gigi chained you to your desk?”

  He was giving her an out, she realized, and she knew that if she claimed she had too much work to do, he wouldn’t press her. Katrina hesitated, then smiled. “One of the assistant managers will cover for me.”

  He nodded, obviously pleased. “I’m glad.” Then briskly he asked, “Do you have any ideas as to where Adrian might decide to ambush the governor while he’s here?”

  A bit relieved at the businesslike topic, she considered the matter, returning his gaze thoughtfully as he sipped his coffee and waited. “Anywhere, if he isn’t particular about killing innocent people.”

  “But he is,” Skye reminded her. “Or, at least, he has been recently. He’s pulled off two hits in the last few months, both against very specific targets. That ambassador in Naples, and the general in Tangier. In both cases only his intended victims were killed.”

  She shook her head. “But in a crowded theme park? How could he hope to single out one target when he means to use explosives?”

  Skye looked reflective. “The governor visits every year, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he have any favorite rides or exhibits?”

  Remembering suddenly, Katrina nodded. “Several. The Haunted Mansion, the pirate ship, the Circus section, and the big Ferris wheel. He never misses those.”

  “Then we concentrate there.”

  “But the problem is the same. There are always lots of people around. Does it have to be explosives?”

  “That was the threat,” Skye said. “And Adrian never makes empty threats. It amuses him to watch his intended victims take every possible precaution before he gets them.”